Category: Culture

‘First Man’ is a film that speculates on and tries to recreate the experience of being Neil Armstrong, going from his early flying days to his terrestrial flying days to his flight to the Moon where he became the first human being to step out onto our satellite. Then there is the trip home and […]

I have to confess to not knowing who Rian Hughes is but looking at the people praising him prior to the introduction then I must have seen his work as indeed you have. After this book, you’re not likely to forget him. I thought more about my opening line after reading this book and figured […]

Hello everyone I blame ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ for bringing dystrophic Science Fiction back into vogue, although really, it hasn’t gone away, just not so extreme and not so close to our current time that it can make people uncomfortable. After all, George Orwell’s ‘1984’ is one of the rare SF books on school curriculums and […]

We were informed by SFcrowsnest contributor and writer Sven Scheurer’s widow, Heidi, that he died unexpectedly on 9th September 2018. He had told me he’d been ill recently but was getting back into the swing of reviews. Some of our chats often centred on the contrast on living in Germany where he was born and […]

This is a documentary about nutrias. These are the world’s largest rodents, weighing in the range of 20 pounds or more. They began invading southern Louisiana swamps about 1958. They have driven out aquatic wildlife in that area. The issue of what to be done about them is controversial. Animal protection and fashion sources benefit […]

‘Distracted: Reclaiming Our Focus In A World Of Lost Attention’ by Maggie Jackson is an update of her 2008 book. Her contention is people are doing far too much on-line through various devices and not paying attention to the real world with a variety of examples is something we should all be familiar with. I […]

Hello everyone When I was young, I often wore something that would give away my interest in comics, whether it was a painted Phoenix design on the back of my white windcheater or the odd badge. These days I’m quite sedate in my choice of clothes whereas now it would less likely to […]

With a title like Amy Treadwell’s book, ‘The Red Book Of Luck’, you have to ask yourself do you feel lucky? I tend to believe a lot of the time you either make your own luck or random chance or serendipity helps things along. As a writer, I have to be interested in what other […]

As Keith Dallas and John Wells explain in their introduction to their book, ‘Comic Book Implosion’, there hasn’t been a book documenting the events in 1978 when DC Comics’ comicbook explosion imploded instead. There’s also been a lot of speculation but no one has really put together all the facts as they draw together interviews […]

‘The Robot In The Next Cubicle’ by Larry Boyer will make you think of the automated voices that ring you up offering…well, whatever they try before you hang-up. The sub-title, ‘What You Need To Know To Adapt And Succeed In The Automation Age’ is a bit more revealing. In his brief history of the technology […]